Flame in the Shadows

FYI: This post may contain spoilers.

When asked if the film Rebecca was a faithful adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel during his famous 1955 interview with Francois Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock replied:

Yes, it follows the novel very faithfully because [David O.] Selznick had just made Gone with the Wind. He had a theory that people who had read the novel would have been very upset if it had been changed on the screen, and he felt this dictum should also be applied to Rebecca. You probably know the story of the two goats who are eating up cans containing the reels of a film taken from a best seller. And one goat says to the other, “Personally, I prefer the book!”

Even one of film’s greatest directors appreciates the inevitable pitfalls of making an adaptation of a popular novel. But the film is a success as both an adaptation and a stand-alone work. There have been at least five television productions based on the du Maurier novel, but none can rival its first and only big screen appearance. As Hitchcock’s first American production, it is a beautiful marriage of the classic Studio Era production and British tradition. The resulting film, which stunningly is the only one of Hitchcock’s works to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, maintains his unique voice, and achieves a fidelity to its source material without being a slave to it.

In the interview, Rebecca‘s director admits that it is not really a “Hitchcock picture,” namely because it is lacking in humor, nonetheless he is able to bring his own distinctive aesthetic to the story. It is curious that the director known as the “Master of Suspense” should be closely associated with humor, but it is one of the trademarks of his films. In Rebecca, he does what he can, including scenes such as Maxim de Winter singing in shower and the couple forgetting their marriage license, not to mention the casting of foppish Nigel Bruce as de Winter’s brother-in-law, but it is otherwise a rather humorless affair. However humor isn’t the only quality associated with his style; after all, what would a Hitchcock film be without a love story? While du Maurier’s novel concerns the relationship between Maxim and the second Mrs. de Winter, it would be a stretch to call it romantic, but the film undeniably is. Laurence Olivier’s Maxim is charming and sophisticated, and while he maintains the brooding mystery found in his literary counterpart, he is not so remote and forbidding. Joan Fontaine is an innocent Mrs. de Winter who adores her husband, and honestly who can blame her. Add in Franz Waxman’s lush score and you have all the ingredients to make audiences swoon.

Humor and romance give Hitchcock’s films a certain amount of appeal, but it is his technical superiority and manipulation of plot and character to build a climate of suspense that hold audiences captive. Only Hitchcock could turn something as innocent as a couple watching a home movie of their honeymoon into a moment filled with sinister implications. But the film’s menace is most potently delivered by Judith Anderson’s Mrs. Danvers. As Truffaut points out in the interview, Rebecca “wasn’t a thriller, there was no suspense. It was simply a psychological story, into which [Hitchcock] deliberately introduced the element of suspense around the conflict of personalities.” Mrs. Danvers is responsible for keeping Rebecca alive. She carefully maintains her things as if Rebecca were about to walk through the door. Her obsession with her former mistress causes her to resent the new Mrs. de Winter with a homicidal intensity. Danvers dogs her at every step, and Hitchcock deliberately de-humanizes her to such an extent the housekeeper takes on almost demonic proportions. Her presence in a scene is not only unsettling for Mrs. de Winter but also for the viewer. The audience shares the heroine’s constant dread and fear, which proves to be not entirely irrational.

Despite Selznick’s philosophy, the film does depart from the novel in some rather significant ways, which are necessary both in translating the novel into cinematic terms and meeting the different demands of a film audience. The second Mrs. de Winter is the novel’s first-person narrator, which is one of its most distinctive features. There is very little plot to this story and even less action, because most of what the novel relates is hypothetical. Much of what Mrs. de Winter expresses is speculation about what she thinks people would have done and said, and, which she devastatingly learns , has little basis in reality. Apart from the voice over which delivers the novel’s famous opening line, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” it simply is not practical to attempt the interiority of the literary work. Fortunately for the film, this works to its benefit as it makes for a far more likeable protagonist. Mrs. de Winter’s constant speculation and her total passivity make it difficult to find her character appealing. Fontaine’s character is no less naïve or insecure, but her arc is slightly more self-motivated. In the novel, the narrator has been rendered paralyzed by the image of Rebecca that she has created in her mind. She is unable to break free from this hold until Maxim reveals the true nature of his relationship with Rebecca. In the film, after Danvers confronts Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca’s rooms, the heroine finds the courage to stand up to her. She orders Rebecca’s things to be removed; she organizes the Manderley ball, and declares, “I am Mrs. de Winter now.” Such independence is totally lacking in the literary character; she remains dependent on others to do things for her because she lacks the conviction to do them herself. Absent the novel’s insight into Mrs. de Winter’s thoughts, the character would be tough to sell to a cinematic audience. The film remains faithful to the novel in its presentation of her timid personality but giving her room to grow and making her slightly more assertive allows the audience to become invested in what happens to her.

The film’s plot follows that of the novel with remarkable accuracy and manages to alter only a few points. One of the differences lies in how Rebecca died. In the novel, when Maxim finally reveals what happened between Rebecca and him, he confesses that he shot her after she goaded him into it. Regardless of how ugly a person Rebecca may have been, Maxim is still guilty of her murder, and he goes to great lengths to conceal that fact. All the pains Hitchcock has taken to make the audience want this couple to be together would be undermined by this fact. So the decision was made to play a little fast and loose with the details. Instead of shooting Rebecca, Maxim hits her and as she back away from him she stumbles and hits her head, which kills her. For all intents and purposes the outcome is the same, but it was an accident. Maxim lives in fear of the truth being discovered while perpetually being haunted by Rebecca; however, the impact on the audience is worlds apart. The novel makes Maxim into a murderer while the film makes him into a victim of circumstance, which is much easier for a viewer to accept.

After all that Maxim and Mrs. de Winter have gone through, the novel ends in rather anticlimactic fashion. As the two are driving toward Manderley, smoke in the distance and a light on the horizon are meant to indicate that the house is on fire with the implication that it has been set by Mrs. Danvers as punishment for what Maxim did to her beloved Rebecca. But we never see any of that. Hitchcock couldn’t end a film like that, though. The image of Manderley in flames is the most dramatic of the entire film, and by leaving Maxim and the audience in doubt as to whether or not Mrs. de Winter is still inside increases the tension and provides a more satisfactory conclusion when the couple is reunited. The house fire also permits the audience to see Mrs. Danvers killed by the conflagration, which in the world of the film is a suitable punishment for her abuse of Mrs. de Winter. However, it is the film’s final image that is the most evocative. The camera closes in as Rebecca’s omnipresent monogram ‘R’ is consumed by the flames. In the novel, Maxim is utterly devoted to Manderley. It is a point that is underscored repeatedly, so its loss would presumably devastate him. He may live freely but the loss of his family home is the price for Rebecca’s death. The Maxim of the film does not appear to have the same affection for Manderley, and as he is not responsible for her death, the fire does not have the same meaning as it does in the novel. The fire on screen is an electrifying scene that provides for a sensational climax in which the true villain meets her end. In spite of Mrs. Danvers wickedness, it is Rebecca who is the film’s real antagonist. From the opening moments, Rebecca has cast a shadow between Maxim and Mrs. de Winter. As along as her presence endured there is no possibility for these two to be happy. The image of that ‘R’ being destroyed conveys to the audience that what remains of her has gone up in smoke, and despite her best efforts, Rebecca has not won.

Rebecca is everything that a screen adaptation of a literary work should be. It is faithful to Daphne du Maurier’s novel in terms of its overall plot, characterizations and themes but does not sacrifice its own artistic integrity in order to do so. It is not dependent on the novel but is respectful of it, and Hitchcock wisely makes decisions that elevate a simple story to a memorable cinematic experience. Both novel and film have their own merits, and make for an interesting comparison without the necessity of tearing one or the other down. It is the best of both worlds.